Doing Better
by SigmaTheta
Summary: Something still has to be done about Willow. But for now the world didn't end, and Giles and Buffy have some time to pick up the pieces of the last several months. (Post-Season 6. Buffy/Giles in the days immediately following the events of Grave.)


He is exhausted and his entire body aches, but Giles knows most of the damage isn't the sort that can be fixed by doctors, so he declines when Anya offers to call him an ambulance. They sit and wait out in the rubble instead, surveying the wreckage of the Magic Box and discussing the intricacies of filing an insurance claim in Sunnydale, where the definition of an 'act of god'tends to be rather broad compared to other towns.

They've just about come up with a reasonably believable story to tell the adjuster by the time Buffy makes it back, and he is feeling well enough then to stand up to meet her and only stumbles for a moment under the force of her sudden, near-bruising embrace. "Too strong," he murmurs in her ear.

She immediately loosens her grip, apologizing, and pulls away just far enough to frown up at him. "Anya told us you were dying," she says, sounding almost accusatory.

He laughs a little at her tone and puts his hand on her shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. "I'm certain I was at the time, but I've recovered quite admirably," he assures her. "Sorry if I've disappointed you."

She rolls her eyes and gives his arm a half-hearted shove. "You know that's not what I meant."

He grins at her, and though her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, the smile she gives him in return is as bright and genuine as he's ever seen it. "I know," he answers fondly, drinking in the sight of her happiness. It's something he hasn't truly seen since well before her death, and lord has he ached for it this past year. He clears his throat and lets his hand drop. "What's happened to the others?" he asks.

Buffy's expression quickly sobers, and he hates himself for it. "Willow's with Xander," she tells him. "Xander is kind of beat up, and Willow…" She lets the thought trail off with a shake of her head. "I think they're okay for right now. Jonathan and Andrew split, and I dropped Dawn off at home before I came here. She's tired. I think we all are."

The last sentence is said pointedly, and Giles is willing to take the hint. He exchanges a few more words with Anya, promising to discuss the shop's future in greater detail later on, and then lets Buffy sling his arm over her shoulders and take him home.

* * *

The Summers house is quiet when they arrive, all the lights upstairs switched off, and Giles sighs with relief. As happy as he would be to see Dawn again, he knows he is far too tired to be good company for much longer. He veers immediately toward the living room once the door is shut behind them, ready to collapse on the first piece of furniture he reaches and sleep off the worst of the remaining after effects, but Buffy's grip on his arm keeps him from going very far.

"Giles, you're not sleeping on the couch. Look at yourself."

He waves a hand at her, protesting automatically. "I've told you, very little of it is actually physical damage, so there's no chance of me jostling an injury or anything," he says, but he does not argue the point very hard. The couch is an admittedly unappealing prospect.

"Yeah, well, it still can't feel very good. Come on," Buffy says, firmly pulling him back toward the stairs.

He makes one futile attempt to shrug her hand off before fully giving in. "Fine, if you insist," he replies drily, earning a brief smirk from Buffy.

She leads Giles up the stairs and over to the room that was once Joyce's and was once Willow and Tara's and now, for the moment, belongs to no one. She lets him go, and he takes two steps forward before hesitating just inside the doorway. The room is full of Willow's belongings, and there is a dark stain on the carpet that is impossible to ignore, no matter how he tries to avoid looking at it. The air still crackles with magic and grief. Perhaps the couch would be the better choice after all.

Behind him, Buffy takes a shuddering breath. "I should go check on Dawn," she says quietly.

Giles glances at the clock on the bedside table. It's already late afternoon, and he wonders just how long he spent drifting in and out of consciousness on the floor of the magic shop. It certainly hadn't seemed so long at the time, with Willow's emotions surging violently through him and Anya's constant, comforting prattle in his ear. "Was she meant to be at school today?" he asks.

"No," Buffy says. "I mean, yeah, but I called already and told them we had a death in the family." She laughs suddenly, a shockingly bitter sound. "How many times can we use that one before they start to think we're lying?"

He turns around to face her and frowns. "Buffy…"

"Sorry," she mumbles, taking a step back to lean against the doorframe. "It's just…God, everything just keeps happening."

His fingers twitch with the desire to reach out to her, but something in her expression makes him decide against it. "It tends to do that, I'm afraid," he says softly.

"Right," she sighs. She laughs again, quieter and lighter than before, and gently taps her hands against her cheeks, as though trying to keep herself awake. "It's okay," she says, seemingly addressing herself more than Giles, "or it will be soon." She takes a deep breath, shakes her head, and straightens up away from the wall. "Okay, I really am going to go check on Dawn now." She leans forward to jab her finger into his shoulder and adds, "And you should sleep. You really do look awful."

"Yes, thank you," he mutters.

Buffy flashes him another small smile and heads down the hall.

He waits for a few seconds before moving to close the door, leaving it open just a crack to better hear the sounds of the house, though he's not sure what exactly he might be listening for. Being back in Sunnydale has put him on edge, he supposes. He can only hope his exhaustion will win out over the unease when he tries to sleep.

He slips his coat off and turns around to toss it onto the chair in the corner of the room, and then he slowly sets about the task of undressing. With aching muscles, he manages to kick off his shoes and peel away the outer layers of his clothing before deciding that is more than enough to sleep comfortably in and sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed. His claims regarding the nature of his injuries may not have been entirely accurate. He runs his fingers delicately over his chest and winces when he reaches the place where his borrowed powers had been forcibly dragged out of him. A magical wound, certainly, but perhaps with more physical effects than he had first believed. He grabs the hem of his shirt with a sigh and braces himself for whatever colorful bruising awaits him this time.

The creak of the door hinge catches his attention, and Giles looks up sharply. Buffy is standing there in front of him with her hand on the doorknob. She has changed out of her torn and dirty clothing from the fight, and she is watching him, frowning. He straightens up, uncurls his fingers from his shirt, and says, "Buffy, is something wrong?"

She crosses the room and stops just before him, close enough that he has to lean back slightly to maintain eye contact. She stares down at him for several seconds, her frown deepening, and then suddenly reaches out and jabs two fingers into the center of his chest. He jerks back with a hiss of pain, and Buffy smiles humorlessly in her triumph. "I knew you were lying to me," she says.

Giles scowls at her, holding a hand protectively over the spot she had prodded. "I wasn't lying," he protests, and he knows the words are verging on petulance. "I hadn't realized it was quite so bad."

"Sure," she sighs. She reaches out again, this time to pluck at the sleeve of his shirt. "Okay, let's see it."

He eyes her uncertainly, but the stubborn set of her chin tells him that Buffy is entirely serious and any argument would most likely be a waste of time. With a disbelieving shake of his head, Giles reluctantly pulls his shirt off and drops it on the floor. Buffy's sharp intake of breath makes him grimace, and he takes a moment to prepare himself before looking down.

The bruise is deeply purple and disturbingly hand-shaped, which at least, to his mind, supports his decision not to seek any treatment. That would be difficult to explain away believably, even to Sunnydale doctors. The well-defined borders of the injury are a relief, however. Willow was evidently very precise with her extraction, which will mean a sharp pain for the next few days but no widespread, lingering damage. He'd been incredibly lucky, all things considered.

Buffy does not appear to share that opinion. "God, Giles, how did you not notice that?" she asks quietly.

"There was rather a lot going on at the time, if you recall." He does not mention that, until quite recently, every part of him had hurt so much that he could not possibly have picked out any particular source of pain. "It's still not very serious, just a bit more painful than I'd hoped. Nothing to be concerned about."

"Yeah, of course not," Buffy says skeptically. She considers him for another moment before looking away. "Right," she mumbles under her breath, and she then turns sharply around and walks over to close the door.

Giles sits up a little straighter, watching her actions with a puzzled frown. "What are you doing?" he asks.

When she faces him again, her expression has gone from mere stubbornness to grim determination. "I guess I have to keep an eye on you tonight," she tells him. "Lie down and scoot over."

He blinks at her, caught off guard by the command. "Buffy, that's entirely unnecessary."

"I don't think it is," she says, crossing her arms and stepping closer.

He huffs in annoyance, trying to ignore the wariness prickling up his spine as she approaches. "I promise you, I'm neither going to drop dead nor suddenly vanish if you leave me alone here."

Buffy tilts her head and regards him with an expression he cannot read at all. "I don't believe you," she says finally, a slight quaver in her voice.

His eyes widen in realization. It's really nothing to do with the injury at all, then.

He wants to argue with her. He wants to assure her that he would never keep something so important from her, wants to be offended she would think that of him. But he remembers how sorely tempted he had been to leave without any notice, to slide a letter under her door and disappear without having to face her at all. He remembers waiting until the last possible moment to make it easier on himself, and he remembers the look of absolute betrayal in her eyes. Buffy had said she had forgiven him and understood why he had gone, but her trust in him is still shaken. He does not know if he can fix that, or if it is even worth trying.

Giles drops his gaze in surrender. He is so very tired. He heaves himself to his feet and turns to pull the sheets back, and then he lies down and shifts obediently to the far side of the bed.

* * *

Giles wakes with a jolt, and it takes the span of several frantic seconds for him to remember where he is and why and that the most recent danger has already safely passed. Buffy leans suddenly into view while he is still processing this and reaches for him, putting her hand on his shoulder and forcing him to be still. "Whoa, sorry," she says, her eyebrows drawn together with concern. "I tried not to wake you up, but I guess that didn't really work out. Are you okay?"

He relaxes slowly as the rest of the details come flooding back in. "Yes, sorry," he mumbles, running his hand over his face. It's been quite some time since he's slept beside another person, and he supposes it was the dip of the mattress as Buffy got up that had startled him awake. "I forgot where I was for a moment is all." Her grip on his shoulder loosens, and he pushes himself to a sitting position. The pain in his chest throbs back into his awareness, making him wince, and he is grateful that Buffy had kept him from flailing around too much in his brief panic.

She watches him carefully before glancing toward the clock. "It's still pretty early, if you wanted to try and get some more sleep," she tells him.

He waves a hand at her. "No, no," he says, "I'm quite thoroughly awake now."

"Sorry," she says again, sheepish.

Giles shakes his head. "Not your fault." He'd slept far better than he had expected to, anyway, given the circumstances. He shifts over to the edge of the bed and reaches down for his shirt.

Buffy leans over to snatch it up before he can grab it and holds the shirt between two fingers. She makes an exaggerated expression of disgust as it sways near her face and thrusts it away, holding it at arm's length. Smoke, sweat, and spell residue can't be too pleasant a combination. "I'm guessing you didn't bring a change of clothes when you popped over for your life-or-death magic battle?" she asks.

He shakes his head again. "No, I'm afraid teleportation spells don't come with a hand baggage allowance." They don't interact particularly well with most metals, either. He's wearing contact lenses for the first time in years, and he's already had to stop himself several times from reaching to fiddle with glasses that aren't there.

She drops the shirt back on the floor with the rest of his clothes. "Well, we can do some laundry and at least make you presentable enough to go shopping." She hesitates, biting the inside of her lip for a moment, before adding, "Unless you're not staying long enough for it to be worth it."

Giles turns away from her with a sigh, unable to meet that unnaturally fragile look. "I honestly don't know, Buffy," he says softly. "I wish I could give you a clearer answer, but there's a great deal that's uncertain right now."

"You're telling me," she says, with a little twist of a smile. She comes over to sit beside him on the bed, close enough to bump her knee against his, and takes a deep breath before looking up at him. "Okay, so what happens next?"

It's a terrifyingly open-ended question with more possible answers than he cares to think of. He chooses to focus on the most obvious and pressing matter before them. "Something has to be done about Willow."

Buffy's gaze drifts away to the wall across from them, and she does not respond right away. "What kind of something?" she finally asks, her tone wary.

He scratches at his forehead while he considers the problem. The cut above his eye has scabbed over and is now prickling unpleasantly. "Xander was able to reach her and prevent her from doing anything catastrophic, but it's a temporary solution. That darkness is still inside her, deeply entwined with her very being now, and it has to be managed. She needs rehabilitation and control…" He trails off for a moment, remembering the black, hollow despair in Willow's eyes, and the more unpleasant alternatives push themselves into his mind. "Possibly something more extreme, if she chooses not to cooperate." He feels Buffy tense beside him, and he hurries to reassure her. "There's no reason to assume she wouldn't," he tells her quickly. "You said she seemed to be doing better before all this, so for now we should trust her desire to change is still sincere."

Buffy nods, though she still looks uneasy. "So, is there, like, a magic halfway house somewhere in Sunnydale?" she asks.

He allows himself a brief smile. "Not to my knowledge," he says, "and even if there were, I'm not sure it would be the best idea. She may do better away from Sunnydale for a while, where there aren't as many…reminders of what's happened." He can remember his own rehabilitation all too well, locked in a Council facility and surrounded by people who had known him since he was a child, people he had disappointed. At least he had been far away from the one he'd killed.

Buffy nods again, slowly, like she understands this, and perhaps she really does. She had chosen to leave the familiar behind herself once, and though Giles still does not know the details of that summer, it seemed to have given her some measure of peace at the time. "What about your new buddies from the coven?" she suggests after a moment.

"That would be ideal," he agrees with a sigh. "They certainly have the necessary skills and resources, but…" He stops and shakes his head. "I'll have to contact them and see if they'd be willing to take her in. They do owe me a favor or two."

Buffy shoots him a puzzled glance. "Why wouldn't they want to?" she asks. "Didn't they send you here to help Willow?"

"They sent me here to prevent an apocalypse," Giles says bluntly. "If it could be done without harming Willow, that was obviously preferable, but it was never their priority. She was a threat to be stopped."

Buffy looks away again. "They're afraid of her," she realizes.

"They're…understandably cautious," he says. "She's extremely powerful and largely untrained. That's traditionally not a good combination, even without Willow's history." He could have done better for her. He could have taken her under his wing like she'd so clearly wanted, taught her limits and boundaries and when it might and might not be worth the risk to push against them. Instead he'd seen the signs and tried to shut her down completely, hiding away the more dangerous books in his collection and snapping at her for transgressions she didn't fully understand, as though that could ever have anything but the opposite effect. He should have done better. "I'll talk to them," he promises, placing a gentle hand on Buffy's knee. "And I should probably talk to Willow as well. I'll let you know as soon as something is figured out."

Her hand settles on top of his, and she smiles. "Sounds almost like a plan."

* * *

In the evening, he stands with Buffy at the kitchen sink, cleaning up after their meal. He has his sleeves pushed up past the elbow to keep them clear of the suds as he scrubs and rinses each dish, then passes them on to Buffy to dry. The silence is comfortable and the monotony almost pleasant. It could be any day from a year or two ago, before everything went so wrong so quickly.

Over the running water, he can just barely hear the sounds of some distressingly upbeat pop song floating down the stairs. Dawn had been excused from helping with the washing up on the condition she finish her understandably neglected homework. He's not sure how anyone could concentrate with that noise, but he supposes he's a bit too far removed from his own teenage years to make that sort of judgment. He glances over at Buffy, who is staring out the window as she methodically wipes down a plate, and clears his throat. "When does Dawn need to go back to school?" he asks softly.

"Tomorrow," she replies, her gaze still fixed on the trees outside. "They said she could have three days, but…" She stops and gives another dark little laugh. "Just three days for death, can you believe that? I mean, I don't even remember how long she got for Mom, and I know she didn't get any time off for me…" She takes a deep, bracing breath, shakes out her shoulders, and seems to come back to herself. "Anyway, Dawn and I decided she should go back tomorrow. She's got finals coming up, and that's gonna suck even more than it usually does, but she's strong and she'll get through it. I'll make sure she does."

Giles nods and is heartened, even a bit relieved, by her words. He still debates with himself nearly everyday over whether he had made the right decision in leaving. To see Buffy like this – determined and aware, not quite as she once was but getting better – reassures him that his choice had, at the very least, not been catastrophically wrong. He rinses the next dish in silence, passes it over, and says, "I was able to get in touch with the coven this morning."

Buffy's shoulders tense, and her fingers tighten over the dish towel. "And?"

"They've agreed to help with Willow's rehabilitation, but they have a few conditions," he tells her. "Most of these are perfectly understandable and pertain only to Willow and her behavior while she is with them, however…" He lets himself trail off for a moment as he finishes cleaning the last few utensils. He shuts off the water and shakes his hands out over the sink, and Buffy hands over the towel without a word and waits patiently for him to continue. "They're also quite adamant that I accompany her and assist."

Buffy looks up sharply, alarm and dismay clear in her eyes. "What? Why?"

He sighs. That had been his question as well, and he's not overly fond of the answer he's arrived at. "I believe they want someone there who both knows Willow personally and also has some understanding of magic…and how badly it can be misused."

Buffy's mouth suddenly twists into a smile, sharp and brittle and bordering on cruel. "So, you're gonna be like her sponsor," she says.

He frowns at her, fighting the instinctive urge to yank his sleeve back down over his tattoo. The comparison is a little too apt. "Yes, I suppose so," he agrees. Twenty years clean and ready to guide some other poor fool through the program. He turns around to lean back against the sink, twisting the towel between his hands. "I can't say I entirely disagree with their reasoning," he admits after a moment.

Her shoulders slump, that brief flash of anger draining out of her, and she takes a step back to lean against the counter opposite him. "I guess it makes sense," she says dully. She peers up at him, her expression almost pleading. "It really has to be you?"

Giles smiles at her tentatively. "I don't believe anyone else quite fits those criteria."

"I guess not," she says, returning the smile. After a moment, she looks away and sighs. "So, when are you going to be leaving?"

He gives the towel another twist before tossing it onto the counter behind him. "I'm not sure yet, but sooner would probably be better. I'll have to talk to Willow about it and also make sure she understands all of this and is willing to cooperate." He briefly wonders when Tara's funeral will be, and if it would be better or worse to wait until after Willow can attend. Closure is a lovely concept, but she may still be too raw to handle it. "I spoke to Xander earlier, but he avoided putting Willow on the phone, so I'm planning to go over there tomorrow." He studies Buffy's unhappy expression as she listens to him, and he asks, quietly, "Would you like to come with me?"

"No," she says, too quickly. She bites her lip guiltily, as though she hadn't meant the answer to be quite so immediate. "I mean, I don't…I don't think I'm ready to see her," she mumbles. "I love Willow, and I want her to be okay, but… _God_ , I'm so angry at her right now." She turns away, crossing her arms and letting her head drop so that the rest of her words are directed to the floor. "She hurt a lot of people, and she almost…" Her voice grows quiet enough that he can barely hear her when she continues, "I really thought we lost her. She scared me."

Giles reaches out automatically, his fingers brushing against Buffy's arm, but she flinches away and he stops. She turns her head, not quite quickly enough for him to miss the way she screws her eyes shut, and he realizes she hadn't really let herself think too deeply about Willow until just now, hadn't allowed herself to think beyond simple facts and plans. "I understand," he says gently, and waits.

Eventually, she lets her arms drop and turns back around, looking at him with dry eyes and a sorrowful expression. When he reaches out to her this time, she lets him, leaning into his touch as he puts a hand on her shoulder. She heaves a deep sigh. "So, what are you doing about the Magic Box?" she asks.

The change in subject is abrupt and obvious, but he lets it go without comment. "Anya and I are still discussing it," he says, pulling his hand back. "Some of the books and merchandise didn't appear too badly damaged, but I'm not sure the shop itself is salvageable. The structure didn't seem particularly sound when we left. I'm hopeful we'll at least be able to get something from the insurance."

Buffy laughs. "What are you going to tell them? I'm assuming you don't actually have Rampaging Witch Coverage."

"We were thinking something along the lines of a gas leak," he admits, mumbling.

She shoots him a disbelieving look.

"It's the popular lie around here for a reason, Buffy," he says, a bit defensively. "The building was old, and we did sell quite a lot of candles and incense that could have ignited something. It's not completely implausible." Buffy does not look any less skeptical, so he shrugs and gives up. "I'm not all that concerned about it, honestly. The shop made a profit, and it's hardly even been mine for the last several months. I do hate to leave Anya without it, though."

Buffy moves back over to the counter beside him and begins putting the stacks of dry dishes away. "Does she really need money anymore, now that she's a demon again?" she points out with a frown.

"I don't think it was about the money." Buffy gives him another look, and he corrects himself. "I don't think it was _entirely_ about the money. I believe Anya liked having something she was good at, other than vengeance. Something human." He glances sidelong at Buffy, watching as she slowly sorts cutlery into a drawer. "You can understand that, surely," he adds, softly.

Her hand tightens, white-knuckled, around the end of a fork, and he thinks it might have been the wrong thing to say. Wrong to remind her right now of that impossible conflict between her destiny and her life that has plagued her these last several years, will continue to do so until she eventually stumbles her way to a third and final death. And he's pushed her from both sides of that conflict, scolding her for neglecting her duties and then despairing when she let them consume her. He wishes, not for the first or last time, that he never had to push her at all.

Her grip is relaxing before he even finishes the thought, and the tension fades from her body just as rapidly. "Yeah, I get it," she says quietly, a small, ironic smile curving her mouth. She puts the fork away and closes the drawer with a sigh. "I'm not sure what I should do about her," she tells him, looking up.

"Must something be done?"

She throws her arms out in a helpless shrug. "I don't know. Don't I have to do something? She's a vengeance demon now, and they're pretty actively bad, right? Not a lot of low-kill, low-maim jobs in that line of work." Her arms fall back to her sides. "But she's still Anya, and she's still helping us…"

The look she gives him is expectant, but Giles remains silent. Anya's new circumstances – or her resumed circumstances, he supposes – are certainly troubling, but he can offer no better assessment than the one Buffy has already arrived at. She is most definitely a demon again, but she clearly had not been stripped of her soul or humanity during the transformation. How long can she possibly maintain that? "It's a difficult situation," he says eventually.

Buffy laughs and shakes her head at him. "You know, you used to be way better at this whole advice thing."

"Sorry," he says, with a soft chuckle. "Though I'm surprised to hear that from you, considering how infrequently you chose to heed it."

"Hey, if there's one thing I've always been great at, it's knowing when advice is good and still not following it." They share a brief smile, and Buffy fiddles with the edge of the counter for a moment before turning around to lean against it once more. She moves closer to Giles, pressing her arm against his, and takes a breath. "Tell Willow…" She stops and shakes her head. "I was gonna ask you to tell Willow I said 'hi', but then I realized how stupid that would be. Just…tell me how she's doing, okay? When you get back tomorrow. Even if it's bad, I want to know."

Giles looks down at her, and she meets his eye steadily. "Of course," he murmurs.

* * *

Xander opens the door after the third knock, and Giles takes in his appearance with raised eyebrows. Giles had taken a moment yesterday to glance in a mirror and had found Buffy's statement that he looked "awful" to be fairly accurate. Her description of Xander as being "kind of beat up" seems to have been a bit of an understatement, however. He has a large bandage covering one cheek and a dark bruise near the center of his forehead, and he is holding himself in the carefully stiff and straight posture that Giles knows from experience means a broken rib or two. Willow had clearly gotten desperate and reckless near the end, losing the finer control with which she had attacked Giles.

Xander looks him up and down and grins. "So, the cut over the eye is a pretty classic, action hero-y touch, but I'm pretty sure I win this one hands down."

Giles offers a smile in return, willing to allow Xander his light-hearted tone for now. "A competition I'm quite happy to lose for once," he replies drily.

"Hey, I think I've had my fair share of victories there. Look out, mister, you may not be the reigning champ for much longer." Xander has his arm stretched across the doorway, his hand pressed firmly against the jamb on the other side. It could very nearly pass for a casual pose, if not for the obvious tension in his muscles and the uneasy quiver at the corners of his friendly grin.

Giles has always admired Xander's sense of loyalty, his willingness to put himself on the line to protect his dearest friends. "I only want to talk to her, Xander," he tells him gently.

His expression falters. He glances quickly over his shoulder and back, looking troubled, and lets out a sigh as he nods. "Yeah, I know," he whispers. He hesitates for just a moment longer before dropping his arm and stepping back to let Giles in. "She's over here, but she's still kinda…"

Xander does not need to complete his description of Willow's state of being, because Giles, a few steps into the apartment, can now see it quite clearly for himself. She is sitting at the kitchen table in a miserable hunch, head down and hair falling over her face. There is a blanket draped over her shoulders, and her hands are curled tightly around a mug of something that had clearly gone cold long ago.

Xander puts a hand on her arm. "Hey, Will," he says quietly. "Got a visitor."

Willow looks up, then over. Her eyes go wide, and she jumps to her feet, banging her leg against the table and sending her abandoned drink sloshing over the side of the mug. The blanket falls to the floor. "Oh god, _Giles_ ," she says, too quickly, the words rushing together. "I'm so sorry! I–" The rest of her apology catches in her throat, and she brings her hands up in a distressed, jittery gesture that reminds him painfully of a much younger Willow, a Willow he might have been able to save from this. She takes a few steps forward, but her foot jams into the table leg as she moves, and she stumbles.

Giles reaches out automatically to steady her, his hands on her shoulders, and then Willow is crying, with deep, heaving sobs that shudder through her whole body. She keeps trying to speak through the tears, jumbled apologies coming out in gasps, and all he can do is pull her close, let her lean against him, and wait.

He meets Xander's eye over her head, and for all that Willow looks so incredibly young, Xander now looks old beyond his years, solemn and mature in a way Giles has never seen him. There is a temptation, however brief, to just leave Willow in his care. Xander was able to reach her when no one else could, surely he can help her heal and learn and prevent her from going down this path again? But that is not Xander's responsibility, and it would be unfair to ask Willow to depend on him for a sense of control. Love is an incredibly powerful force, but it cannot fix everything.

Willow must go to the coven, and Giles must be the one to take her.

Her sobs slow and settle into something less frantic, deep breathing punctuated by the occasional loud sniff, and her forehead rests heavily against his chest. Giles gently pulls away from her and takes a step back, keeping his hands on her shoulders as she sways in place. "We have something to discuss," he tells her.

Willow bites her lip and nods without looking up.

They move into the living room, Giles sitting on one side of the couch and Willow and Xander sitting close together on the opposite end. This is a conversation that should be had privately, but Willow is gripping Xander's hand like it's the only thing keeping her in this world, and Giles does not quite have the heart to ask him to step outside.

Xander will not understand, though. He knows the dangers of magic only abstractly and externally, does not know all the ways it can twist and writhe and rot within a person's soul, leaving them aching and open for something even more sinister to take hold. He will not understand how crucial it is that Willow leave to get the help she needs.

Giles knows this even as he begins to speak, explaining in brisk terms the coven's offer of help and the conditional demands they have placed on Willow and himself in exchange. Willow listens to it all with her head down, her free hand's ever tightening hold on the cushion beside her the only indication that she is hearing him at all. Xander's frown deepens with every word, and when the brief explanation ends, he is predictably the one to voice a protest.

"Whoa, hold on. What does she have to go halfway around the world for?" His fingers curl tighter around Willow's hand. "Can't they send someone out here instead?"

"I'm afraid that's not an option," Giles says gently, and attempts to return his attention to Willow, who is still staring silently at the floor.

Xander is not yet appeased. "Why not? They're the ones who want to train her, right? Why can't they just magic someone over to take care of it?" He makes a vague gesture with his hand, apparently to represent his idea of teleportation, and then opens his mouth to continue his argument.

" _Xander_ ," Giles says, sharply now, "I am speaking to Willow."

He shuts his mouth with an audible click of teeth and drops his hand, though he still looks deeply unhappy. Beside him, very slowly, Willow lifts her head. "This is what I have to do?" she asks in a dull whisper.

Giles nods, relieved at the lack of fight in her tone. "You cannot stay here as you are."

Willow's expression grows grim, and he knows that she understands this is not just about the damage she caused and the likelihood of her lapsing again should she not learn proper control. A display of dark power such as Willow had shown would not have gone unnoticed. Should something undesirable track down the source of that power and find her suitably vulnerable and willing to be manipulated…

Control is important. Adequate protection while she learns it, even more so.

Willow looks away. "Are…are they going to take my magic from me?"

"You know that's not possible," he says, which is not strictly true. There are ways, old magics far darker than anything they would be trying to remove. He would see Willow killed before he saw her subjected to any of that. "You've already released the powers you stole. Everything left within you is yours, a part of you from here on out."

Her face shows mingled fear and relief at this prospect, a feeling Giles understands all too well. To lose such an intrinsic part of himself would have been unthinkable, but to know that power, that potential for darkness, would always be inside of him was very nearly as bad. He'd been terrified of calling on even the simplest of spells for years afterward and had only begun regularly using magic again relatively recently, when his changing circumstances had demanded it. A Watcher with magic was far more useful to his Slayer than one without.

He hopes it will be better for Willow. At the very least, the coven is sure to have a gentler means of rehabilitation than the Council.

Willow's gaze drifts off to the side, landing somewhere on the wall behind Giles. Her eyes are unfocused, and her free hand anxiously kneads at the cushion beside her.

Giles leans forward slightly, trying to regain her attention. "Do you understand all this?" he asks softly. "Will you allow me to take you to the coven?"

The question is enough to jolt her from her reverie, but she turns to look not at Giles but at Xander. He is still clearly displeased with the nature of the conversation, but he says nothing to that effect, merely raises his eyebrows at Willow in a silent question. She smiles sadly at him, squeezes his hand, and lets it go.

With a deep breath, she turns again to Giles. "When do we leave?"

* * *

Buffy is in the living room when he makes it back to the house, curled up on the couch and watching some old, black and white movie that he doesn't recognize. She reaches for the remote as he walks in and hits the mute button, tilts her head in his direction and asks, "How'd it go?"

Taking in the sight of her, Giles has the brief, absurd thought that he has just come home from a long day of work to find Buffy waiting up for him. If anything, it was typically the other way around. He shakes his head and shrugs off his coat. "Well enough, I suppose. She's agreed to come to Devon."

Buffy frowns and holds out her hand, and Giles takes it and lets her pull him down onto the couch beside her. She does not let go once he's settled. "So, that's gonna be soon, huh?"

He nods without looking at her. "Very soon," he says. "As soon as I can arrange for a flight for the both of us."

"No teleportation this time?"

"No, the last thing Willow needs right now is exposure to more magic. A plane will be more than sufficient." Beside him, Buffy takes a deep breath and squeezes his hand a little tighter. "I'm sorry," he says, glancing down at her. "I do wish I could stay longer."

She shakes her head and manages a smile that is only slightly forced. "It's okay. As reasons go, this one's pretty important." She rests her head on his shoulder and lets out a sigh. "At least you're not leaving for my own good this time."

It's a pointed remark, no matter how casually she says it, and not one he has any good response to. He turns his head away guiltily and lets his gaze fall on the television. Buffy says nothing else and makes no move to adjust the volume again, so he sits very still while she leans against him and watches as the movie silently continues to play out. It's charmingly simple, in the way of old films, and he can pick up on the basic plot well enough even without the benefit of sound or further context.

Buffy shifts beside him when the channel switches over to a commercial, letting go of his hand and pushing herself up to sit a little straighter. She reaches across him to touch the center of his chest, her fingers gently probing.

"It doesn't hurt," he tells her, and he hopes she will believe him without any more painful prodding. The bruise is still vibrantly present, but the ache has already dulled to almost nothing and he'd like to keep it that way, without any applications of force from a skeptical Slayer.

Fortunately, she seems to take him at his word this time, relaxing back onto the couch cushions and shifting her attention to the television once more. Her hand stays where it is, resting lightly over his heart, and Giles finds himself thinking, for the first time really, about the physical contact between them.

It was never something they'd either particularly avoided or particularly sought out before. He would correct her form with light touches during training, and she would offer him a hand up once she'd inevitably mastered whatever technique he'd been teaching. He might put a comforting hand on her shoulder after a trying situation, and she was sometimes prone to giving quick hugs as she bounded out of the room when she was in especially good spirits. When he first saw her again, miraculously alive, he'd held her fiercely and she'd returned that intensity. But she had pulled away from him afterward, drawn in on herself for reasons that are now obvious, and he'd taken his cue from her and restrained himself in kind, despite the near constant urge to reach out and touch her and assure himself that she was really, truly there.

Now she is curled up against his side causing his arm to go numb while they watch a movie with the sound off.

He tilts his head back and closes his eyes. It's been a strange year.

It is perhaps a testament to just how strange the last few days in particular have been that he does not quite notice Buffy's hand moving until she brushes against the bare skin of his neck, nails scraping gently over his throat as her fingers curl and slip just under the edge of his shirt. He opens his eyes again slowly, blinking up at the ceiling a few times as her fingertips stroke along his collarbone. He looks down at her with a confused frown, but she is still staring forward, her eyes locked on the screen, and appears largely unaware of her own actions. He finally opens his mouth to speak. "Buffy, what–" is as far as he gets before a sudden, blaring noise by his elbow makes him jump, effectively cutting off the question.

Buffy sighs and her hand moves away. She places it briefly on his knee as she leans over him to retrieve the clock from the end table, then stands up as she switches off the alarm. "Sorry about that," she says. "I want to meet Dawn at the school and walk her home today, so I set an alarm so I wouldn't forget. But then I forgot about the alarm." She gives him a wry little smile and then holds her hand out to him. "You want to come? I bet she'd be happy if you did."

Giles hesitates. His heart is beating quite quickly, and he knows it is not just from the start the alarm clock had given him. He is suddenly wary of touching her, in a way he never has been before.

Buffy tilts her head, her expression showing nothing but a mild puzzlement over his prolonged silence, no indication that she had behaved in any sort of unusual way. She wiggles her fingers expectantly in front of his face, and Giles realizes he is being ridiculous. Whatever this is, it's not worth trying to pull away from her again. Besides, she is right that Dawn will likely appreciate his presence. The girl had greeted him with an embrace almost as forceful as her sister's and had spent much of yesterday happily chattering on at him, the near-desperate babble of one who is trying very hard to avoid thinking of anything else. He'd abandoned her, too, when he left.

He takes Buffy's hand, and she pulls him easily to his feet. "Of course," he says. "I'd be happy to join you."

* * *

Giles considers the book in his hands. It's an old volume of history that had once belonged to him, gifted away a few years ago now. It covers the rise and fall of one of Europe's more prominent covens, a powerful group of witches whose influence on summoning and spellcasting is still felt today. It doesn't cover the actual magics in any great detail, however, largely skimming over the specifics in favor of explaining the historical context. It should be harmless enough.

He shakes his head and slides the book into the duffle bag with the rest of Willow's belongings. He is being overcautious, perhaps. He's just spent the last hour packing her clothes and had taken the time to check each and every pocket for stray spell ingredients, and he is now feeling more like her jailer than any sort of friend or mentor or even, as Buffy had sharply suggested, a sponsor. But Willow has suffered a very severe setback, and he supposes it is better to overcorrect than undercorrect.

He takes a step back and casts his eyes over the room, wondering what else she may need. It's difficult enough to pack for another person, and it is even more so to pack for an indeterminate amount of time.

The door creaks on its hinge behind him, and Giles does not bother to look over his shoulder. Buffy spends her life hunting and killing creatures with supernaturally enhanced senses and reflexes, and she spent almost two years sneaking in and out of this very house on a nightly basis without once arousing her mother's suspicions. Buffy is only heard because she wants to be. If it had been anyone else, there would have been footsteps before the door had creaked. "Hello, Buffy," he says quietly.

"Hey," she replies from the doorway. A few seconds pass in silence, and then she is standing beside him, her arm brushing against his. Too close, really, but he doesn't move away. She looks down at the duffle bag, around at the generally haphazard state of the room, and then up at his face. "So, what are you doing in here?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Packing some of Willow's things for her." He scratches idly at his forehead as he looks down at the bag. "It's difficult to know how much to bring, as I'm unsure how long of a stay she might be looking at. I believe I have the essentials covered, as well as a few of her books, but if you can think of anything else she might like to have with her…" He gestures widely, welcoming her suggestions.

Buffy nods and takes a step back, making a quiet humming noise as she looks around the room more carefully. Her eyes light up as she spies something promising, and she moves around the bed and over to the bookshelf in the corner. She opens the small, wooden jewelry box that is sitting on one of the shelves and pulls a few things out of it before returning to Giles' side and holding her chosen items up for his inspection.

A selection of necklaces dangle from her fingers, the colorful, beaded things Willow has always tended to wear. He reaches out, and when Buffy places them in his hand, he can tell they are all made of plastic or simple polished stone, no crystals or anything else radiating any kind of power or energy. These are ordinary things, personal objects that Willow has had for many years. He looks up at Buffy curiously. "You think she'll want these with her?"

"Yeah. I think so. I mean, I know we haven't really been super close lately, but…" She shrugs, looking suddenly self-conscious. "I don't know if she'll really care or not, but it's something normal and human, right? It can't hurt, can it?"

He smiles down at the jewelry in his hand, cheap things with their only value to be found in sentiment. In the end, it's always the little things that bring you back to yourself, small reminders of who you used to be and who you can be again. Who's to say what that will be for Willow? "No, not at all," he says softly. "I'm sure she'll be quite pleased to have them." He curls his fingers carefully over the necklaces and turns to tuck them in the bag.

Buffy watches as he folds a shirt around the necklaces and then places her hand on his arm as he straightens up, drawing his attention back to her. Her eyes are serious, and her mouth opens and closes once before she finally speaks. "Willow is gonna be okay, right?"

Giles does not answer right away. There is no answer, really, not one he can give definitively. He looks down at his hands, gripping tightly at opening of the duffle bag, and thinks about everything he knows of Willow and of corrupting magics. So many are burned up by the dark forces they wield without ever once seeking help. The cliché about first admitting the problem exists for a reason, and the fact that Willow is, at least for the moment, so compliant is a promising start. Even more than that, Willow is strong, and Giles has seen that incredible strength in action more than once. He trusts in her resolve, if not always in her judgement.

He turns to face Buffy, stepping in closer and placing his hand on her shoulder. "I believe she will," he tells her earnestly. "It won't be easy for her and it will take time, but I don't think Willow will allow this to defeat her."

Buffy grins, relief blossoming across her face. "She is pretty stubborn."

"Yes," he agrees fondly, "very nearly as stubborn as you." She rolls her eyes, still smiling, and he gives her shoulder an affectionate squeeze before letting go and turning back to the bag sitting on the bed. He reaches for the zipper to close it up. If Willow needs anything else, it can be acquired once they reach their destination.

When Buffy speaks again, her tone is serious once more. "Are you going to stay the whole time Willow's there?"

Giles keeps his eyes cast downwards. They'd largely kept from discussing this the last few days, but as the flight is booked for tomorrow, there's not much avoiding left to be done. "I'm not sure," he says. "I know you're probably tired of hearing that from me, but I'm afraid it's all I have. I expect they'll require my help less often as Willow progresses, but there's hardly a set timeline for that."

"But it could be a pretty long time."

He fiddles with the straps of the duffle bag, gradually gathering them together in his hands. "Yes," he says. "It could be."

Beside him, Buffy takes a long, deep breath. "Okay."

Something in her tone of voice, the resignation tinged with resolve, makes Giles pause. He waits for a moment, but she says nothing else, and so he carefully lifts the bag and bends to place it on the floor at the foot of the bed.

The door creaks behind him again and closes with a click. Giles tenses, then straightens up very slowly and turns around.

The Buffy standing in front of him is still not quite someone he recognizes, neither the lost, desperate, half-living creature who had risen from the grave nor the girl he had trained and guided and loved for years. He's accepted this, has come to realize that she may never be that person again, after all she's gone through, but that she may just be alright in the end. He's spent the last several days carefully learning what is new and cherishing the familiar that still remains. The look of fierce determination in her eyes is something deeply familiar, but he's rarely been on the receiving end of it before.

He lifts his chin and keeps still as she approaches, doing his best to ignore the suddenly rapid flutter of his heartbeat. "Keeping an eye on me again?" he asks, trying – and, he knows immediately, failing – for a lightness of tone.

Buffy shrugs, continuing toward him with quick, deliberate steps. "Something like that." She places both hands on his chest when she reaches him, delicately framing the location of his injury, and stops. She glances up at him, her eyebrows raised in silent question.

He brings his hands up to cover hers, meaning to pull them away and step back, but that intention gets lost somewhere in the middle. His fingers curl around her hands and stay there, holding her in place instead. "Buffy…" he says, barely more than a whisper, but he can find no other words to follow.

She saves him the trouble. "This isn't…" she begins, trailing off as her nails scratch anxiously across the fabric of his shirt. "I'm not trying to get you to stay or anything, okay? That's not what this is."

Giles nods, slowly, and does not ask the obvious question – _what is it, then?_ – because he doubts she'll have any better answer to that than he does. He's already spent the greater part of a year trying to figure it out, and this is as good a conclusion as any he has come up with. Some distant, nagging part of him tells him he should still offer up some kind of protest. He tilts his head away from her. "Buffy, this isn't a good idea," he says, though his voice comes out weary rather than stern, and he makes no further effort to disentangle himself from her.

She laughs, careless and easy, her breath warm and ticklish on his throat, and stays where she is. "I've had a lot of bad ideas lately," she tells him. "This one doesn't even rank."

And he can hardly argue against that, not now when he is still so tired and there is finally, _finally_ a spark of life in his Slayer's eyes once more, a small hint of that old, familiar fire he's missed so dearly. He reaches up, pushes a few loose strands of hair back behind her ear, and lets his fingers trail down her cheek and across the edge of her jaw. His thumb settles near the corner of her mouth, and he watches as her smile slowly spreads. He thinks, grimly, that this is really why he left in the first place. He had needed to put an ocean between himself and Buffy in order to say no to her and mean it. He has no hope of refusing her anything here.

It could be months or years before he sees her again, and if this is what she is asking of him…

He closes his eyes as he leans in, and Buffy pulls him down the rest of the way.

* * *

It's early in the season, but the airport is already thronged with summer travelers. Giles keeps a guiding hand on Willow's back as they make their way carefully from the check-in counter to the far corner where the others have tucked themselves away from the crowds, waiting to say their farewells.

Their group is small this time. Dawn is at school and Anya has already been and gone, arriving first and leaving before Xander had shown up with Willow. She'd stayed only long enough to throw her arms around Giles and make an enthusiastic promise to continue harassing the insurance company on his behalf. Now it is just the four of them again, as it hasn't been for quite some time.

Willow is moving through the world at half-speed, as though her guilt and grief are physical things weighing her down, but she perks up slightly at the sight of her friends. Giles gives her a light push forward and then steps back, letting her have some illusion of privacy as she says her goodbyes. He watches as Buffy fidgets awkwardly for a moment before reaching out and pulling Willow into a sudden embrace, and he smiles. There is still much to be discussed and forgiven there, but that is not what either of them needs today.

Xander meets his eye over the girls' heads and they share a look for several long seconds. He is still not entirely content with the situation, but Giles had taken him aside the other day, explained the coven's role and reliability as best he could, and promised very seriously to look out for Willow's wellbeing himself. It had been enough, combined with Willow's own determination to follow through with this, to teeter him over into genuine cooperation instead of sullen, grudging obedience. He gives Giles a quick nod before throwing his arms around both girls and joining in on the embrace.

Giles steps further back, letting them have their moment. He wanders over to the arrivals and departures board to check their flight's status again, though he doubts there have been any changes in the twenty minutes or so since he last looked. He stares at the screens, watching the information flicker through its cycle several times without really absorbing any of it, until a hand on his arm breaks him out of his brief reverie.

Buffy smiles up at him. "Hey."

They haven't really spoken today. She'd been gone from the room early, successfully slipping out of bed without waking him this time, and had been thoroughly engaged in hustling Dawn through her morning routine by the time he'd dressed and made it downstairs. The taxi ride to the airport had been short and quiet, and he's not sure what he can say to her here among the crowds.

He's delayed replying for too long. He clears his throat. "Yes, hello."

Her smile grows wider and her eyes show just a little too much amusement at his awkward response, but she refrains from teasing him. "So, I hope you didn't think you were gonna get away with not saying goodbye to me."

He laughs, relaxing instantly. It's quite ridiculous, at this point, to be uneasy around her. "No, I wouldn't dare try that again," he assures her.

"Good," she says firmly. She steps in close and wraps her arms around him, pulling him tight against her. "Make sure Willow gets better, okay?" she adds, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

Giles nods, closing his eyes as he holds her close and lets his cheek rest against the top of her head. "I'll do all I can."

They remain that way for a moment, as other travelers weave around them. Too long an embrace for a simple goodbye, but still not nearly long enough. Finally, with a delicate sigh against his neck, Buffy pulls away, and he feels the loss acutely. Her hands stay on him, though, shifting over to rest on his upper arms, and her eyes stay locked on his. "And keep in touch this time," she tells him. The words are somewhere between a plea and a command. "I don't care about the time difference. I'm always up all night, anyway."

He smiles and reaches up to take her hands in his. "You as well," he says, giving them a squeeze. "I expect to hear of your troubles long before they spin out of all control."

She laughs, light and clear, and though there is still something dark and haunted creeping behind her eyes, it is far away right now. Perhaps someday it will vanish altogether. "I promise," she says with a grin.

* * *

For the first time, Giles boards the plane from Sunnydale to London with hope in his heart.


End file.
